1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for calculating, based on information on a three-dimensional structure including a plurality of partial structures combined and laid out with a space, a height limit for the space.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, electrical design using electrical computer-aided design (CAD) and mechanical design using mechanical CAD are performed in parallel for designing an information processing device and the like. The electrical design includes a circuit design on a printed circuit board, and the mechanical design includes a shape design of a chassis and a layout of components.
The electrical design and the mechanical design can be pursued in parallel. However, a shape of the chassis often limits the shape and the layout of electrical components. This repeatedly requires mutual exchange of the information on the electrical design and that on the mechanical design according to the progress of designing. Therefore, a mechanical CAD-electrical CAD collaboration support system has been developed to support information exchange which is required for the electrical design and the mechanical design. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-73434 describes a device that generates information such as a height limit due to the shape of the chassis as component-layout limitation conditions on a printed circuit board, thereby reflecting the result of design by the mechanical CAD in the electrical CAD.
However, the calculation of the height limit based on three-dimensional shape information takes a long time because of a large amount of calculation. In other words, the calculation of the height limit using the three-dimensional shape information needs processes of searching for polygons having an intersection with a normal to the printed circuit board at a measurement point of the height limit inside them from many polygons representing three-dimensional shapes of the device, and from among detected polygons, identifying a polygon having a minimum distance to the measurement point. The information processing device handling several tens of thousands of polygons has such a problem that the calculation requires enormous amount of time (see FIG. 8).